Saturday, October 5, 2013

Making the case that improved living conditions exerted a more profound impact on population health than medical advances...

“As
many critics have pointed out, Obamacare, the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (PPACA), uses public-sector funds and mandatory
patient-generated premiums to buy insurance coverage from the
private, for-profit insurance industry. This approach ultimately will
provide coverage for only about half of the uninsured, with costs
that will continue to rise over time due to the administrative waste
inherent in private insurance. In addition, Obamacare will provide
yet another enormous public subsidy for the private insurance
industry, despite its dismal historical record.”

As
nearly as I can tell, this piece explains that Dr. Salvadore Allende, who was a
pathologist, conducted scholarly studies of health and the
pathologies generated by disparity of wealth beginning in 1939. He
began to implement certain Marxist ideas when he became president of
Chile in 1969. The mining companies, doctors, engineers, truck
drivers, and the United States of America took such umbrage that
before his Presidential administration had run its course, he was
killed in a military coup. He died with an AK-47 jammed in his mouth
where he sat at his desk in the Executive Mansion...The author is a
long-term health care provider whose work has been associated with
the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, a subsidiary
organization of the Industrial Areas Foundation, and one of the many
projects inspired by community organizer Saul Alinsky of back of the
yards Chicago, President Obama's old legislative constituency.